As semiconductor circuits are becoming increasingly fine, minute foreign matter on semiconductor substrates becomes to affect the quality of semiconductor products.
As a technology for detecting this type of foreign matter on the semiconductor substrates, Patent Document 1 discloses an inspection apparatus and inspection method that improve detection sensitivity and a throughput by achieving high-efficiency linear illumination from a direction in which diffracted light is not delivered so as to reduce light diffracted from a pattern and by enabling thresholds to be set according to pattern-depending signal variations.
Patent Document 2 discloses an inspection apparatus that comprises a unit for storing the relation between temperatures measured in advance or calculated through simulation and focused point offsets, a unit for predicting a focused point offset from this relation between temperatures and focused point offsets according to a temperature detection result obtained by a temperature detecting unit, and a unit for correcting a focused point offset according to the prediction provided by that unit.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2000-105203    Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2002-090311